I now have three bosses between me and the director of my agency. I lead a team of 16 career coaches. The head boss is very difficult to work with and I have had to do a lot of thought work to adapt to working under her. Now I find out my coworker got picked to be my direct supervisor. This coworker who will now be my boss has been very difficult to work with: non-communicative and tends to assume everyone around her is trying to do bad things. She gets very upset when things do not go the way she thinks they should. I did not apply for the position because of the toxicity I have seen regarding behaviors with the top two bosses. I love what I do and am making a difference in a difficult situation. I also am helping thousands of young people with my work.

Now I am hoping for the best with this new supervisor. I have been on good terms with her and have chosen to focus on her good qualities. My issue is that I have this story in my head about how bad it could become. She can be friendly but has been quite vindictive and petty in the past. My mind is fixating on how I need to leave, but I don’t want to leave for another two years at least.

I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and support her as her employee, and at the same time, I am catastrophizing all the things that could go wrong. I have been in awful work situations in the past, with intense bullying, mind games, and traumatic situations.

Because of the culture at my first workplace, a coworker was shot and killed, another coworker left in tears and had a heart attack immediately after work, and a coworker who later became a supervisor once followed me home and attempted to rape me. I had to physically fend him off. I was 18 years old, and I felt trapped. I know I have the emotional tools right now to handle anything that comes at me, but my past self is having a meltdown.

I know I can do a model and attempt to change my T line. Should I? Should I try and comfort my past self? Do I need to sit with the current model for a while and feel it through? How do I manage this?